Apple Is Not A Fun Place To Work And You Don't Get Paid Very Much

In his book, Inside Apple, Adam Lashinsky approaches a topic that's pretty taboo among Apple employees -- how much the company pays.

He offers the example of an Apple senior director who might make $200,000 with up to a $100,000 bonus in a good year -- compensation that's "competitive with the marketplace but no better."

Plenty of millionares have come from Apple, but if you want to get rich, you're better off working elsewhere.

There almost seems to be an Orwellian effort to divert employees' attention from money. Former Apple marketing employee Frederick Van Johnson told Lashinsky that "money is not the metric...Sitting in a bar and seeing that 90% of the people there are using devices that your company made...you can't put a dollar value on it."

"If they don't join for a good time," Lashinsky writes, "they also don't join Apple for the money."

In discussing working for Apple, Steve Jobs said, "I don't know anyone who wouldn't say it's the most fulfilling experience in their lives. People love it, which is different than saying they have fun. Fun comes and goes."